Validating the measurements of your Smappee monitor

Introduction

Measuring the consumption and production in your installation is not only very advantageous to develop healthy habits, it also allows the Smappee charging station to offer load balancing, overload protection and smart charging. 

That is also why it is so important to verify that the measurements are correct. Incorrect measurements can cause a lot of issues. There is no worse feeling then realising measurements were wrong after 6+ months or having your main breaker tripping because overload protection can't protect your installation correctly. 

After every installation of a Smappee monitor, one should validate the measurements in the installation to make sure there are no issues.

If you are an installer, we urge you to have a look at the Smappee Academy as we have a topic dedicated to validating the measurements. This can be found here.

Physical installation

Please find below the checks one should do to make sure that everything is correctly installed:

1. Please make sure that the clamp is connected in the correct direction. On each type of CT, you have a mark "K -> L", you need to make sure this is correctly installed. The arrow has to point to the direction of the current flow.

  • For production/battery the arrow needs to point away from the inverter towards the fusebox.
  • For Grid the arrow must point away from the meter towards the fusebox.
  • For a submeter the arrow must point away from the fusebox towards the submetered load. 

                               

2. Please make sure the CT's are connected on the correct cable.

  • Grid CT's must always be placed where all import and export is measured. We recommend to connect the CT's just below the main fuse of the main fusebox. 
  • Production CT's must always be placed on the inverter. We recommend to connect above the fuse where the inverter is connected to. 
  • Appliance or circuit CT's must always be placed above the fuse where the appliance is connected to. 

3. Make sure you are measuring all solar production and not just a part. If you are not measuring all solar production in the installation, this will lead to incorrect consumption measurements. 

4. Make sure you are connecting the CT's to the correct phase. In order to help you during configuration, label each CT as L1, L2 and L3 so you make no mistakes during configuration either. Use a multimeter to determine what phase is L1, L2 and L3. If you measure 0V between 2 cables, they are the same phase. 

  • The brown cable of the Power Box or charging station is Phase 1 for configuration purposes. 
  • The black cable of the Power Box or charging station is Phase 2 for configuration purposes. 
  • The grey cable of the Power Box or charging station is Phase 3 for configuration purposes. 

                               

Configuration

Please find below the checks one should do to make sure that everything is correctly configured. You can validate the measurements in both the app and the Smappee Dashboard but if possible, we would recommend checking the Dashboard as it allows you to better visualize the impact of the changes.

Via Dashboard

In the card Load Configuration

Via App

In the app, go to Settings then choose Your Smappee Monitors and then Load configuration.

1. Make sure you select the correct CT type. 

2. Make sure that the CT Hub, CT Hub input and phase all correspond to what is physically connected for that load. As previously mentioned, use a multimeter to determine what phase is L1, L2 and L3. If you measure 0V between 2 cables, they are the same phase.

3. For solar production or a submetered load, if the GRID measures import/export as we strongly recommend, make sure that the option Measured by GRID is active. 

4. For hybrid solar inverters (Solar panels + battery system connected to the same inverter) make sure that you add the load as solar production (and not storage) and make sure hybrid solar inverter option is active.

Troubleshooting

Please find below some common easy checks you can try in case measurements are incorrect and you are unsure what is the issue. 

  • Requirements:

Via Dashboard

Make sure you have a Board with the Live Electricity Values and the Load Configuration cards. Preferably next to each other so you can see the impact of your changes. 

Via App

In the Smappee app, go to Settings then choose Your Smappee Monitors and then Load configuration.

  • Issues with solar production

In case measurements of solar production are incorrect, please check the PF (Power factor) of the load. If there is more then 200w of solar production, the PF of the load should be 0.98 or above. If not, there is a very real chance the phases are incorrectly assigned. 

Also make sure that the Power (W) is displaying a positive value. If solar production is displaying a negative value then:

    • If Power Factor is okay, that means the phases will have to be reversed
    • If Power Factor is not okay, that means the wrong phase is assigned

If solar measurements are incorrect and yet you have a near 1,00 Power Factor, please check if you measure all solar production in the installation.

    • Maybe there is more then 1 inverter?
    • Maybe the inverter is a 3 phase inverter instead of a single phase inverter? 
    • Maybe the CT is connected to the wrong cable? 
    • Maybe the CT is not only measuring solar production but also other loads? 
    • Maybe it's a hybrid solar inverter? (it is possible the battery is recharging and in that case we can only show the surplus solar production not used by the battery)
  • Issues with GRID or other submetered loads 

In order to validate if the measurements of the GRID values or another submetered load is correct, we strongly recommend turning on a heavy load in the installation. If the submetered load is the car charger for example, we recommend to plug in the car and start a charging session. 

Now, check the Power (W), Power Factor and Current (A). When a heavy load is active (such as a car charger) you may reasonably assume that the loads should display a near 1,00 Power Factor (PF). This does not apply for loads displaying very low consumption values. High consumption can be seen in Current (A) column. 

Example 1: Low consumption values, validation impossible.

Example 2: High consumption values, high Power Factor.

Example 3: High consumption values, low Power Factor.

Example 4: High consumption values, high Power Factor but negative values.

 

Warning: Please note that when there is solar production in the installation, it is possible that the GRID values will display negative consumption. This is because those CT's are measuring both import and export. When there is low consumption and high solar production in the installation, the CT's will display the exported energy in that case and export is always displayed as a negative consumption.